


You've Changed

by I_Am_Your_Dentist



Category: Jak and Daxter
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-25
Updated: 2012-11-25
Packaged: 2017-11-19 13:07:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 5,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/573616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Am_Your_Dentist/pseuds/I_Am_Your_Dentist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of drabbles set in the universe of Jak and Daxter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Expectations

It had been two years since she had seen that face, that sunny smile, that silly poof of yellow hair. She missed it. Hell, she missed everything about her old life, even the hopelessly furry Daxter. Haven City wasn't exactly a warm and welcoming home, and she found that missing things filled up most of her time.

So when she finally saw that boy she had waited for, after so long on her own, she couldn't help the crushing disappointment at what she saw before her. It was Jak, all right, but not the Jak she remembered. This Jak was darker, and full of terrible pain. The innocence had left his face, the smile was gone. The feeling of safety and security she had once felt in his presence, the surety that he would always protect her should the need arise, had all but disappeared, replaced by the fear of this creature before her. She could see it all too well in his eyes: he had hurt people who hadn't deserved his wrath, and he would hurt her, if she gave him reason to.

Erol provided a relief from the stress of her life, being her rock in this ever-flowing stream even now. She was still so lost, so absolutely alone in this place. He was the only one who offered a friendly hand for her to hold. Was it any wonder she preferred his company to Jak's now? Was it really such a surprise to the people around her? Jak called him evil, said he wasn't the person she thought he was, but the only person she could see who fit that description was Jak himself. He wasn't the person she remembered anymore. He was a stranger with her friend's name.

It was sad. She had enough self-awareness to admit that. It was a sad thing that she wished wasn't true. A lot of things in Haven city were sad. She just hadn't expected this to be one of them.


	2. Power

Contrary to popular belief, he liked the power.

Even as a kid, or more accurately back in a time when he could still be called a child without a skeptical eyebrow, he had always felt that desire to attain power. He wanted to be strong, to defend the people he cared about, to defeat those that opposed him. His besting of Gol and Maia only increased that desire. Victory was like a drug, and all he wanted in the world was to taste it just once more, just once more, until it was little more than an obsession.

He wondered if it was worth it, as he watched all those close to him begin to drift away. Even Daxter, once his constant companion, now looked at him with fear in his eyes, as if he expected at any moment that Jak would rip him to shreds like the countless Metalheads they encountered on a daily basis. And who could blame him? He wasn't the same Jak from Sandover, the mute little boy that everyone loved. He was someone – no, something – else entirely.

So he coveted the power it gave him, because that was all he had left. He couldn't hate it without hating himself, and if he hated himself he would truly have no reason left to live. This dark power became his closest ally, the thing that whispered to him in the dark and told him to keep going. There would always be another day. Another kill. Another chance for that taste of victory he still couldn't shake after all this time. He let it consume him.

Better, after all, to be consumed than to disappear entirely.


	3. Conversation

_Dark, are you awake?_

**...**

_Dark, I can hear you ignoring me._

**Shut up, ya glowing bastard. Just because you don't have to sleep doesn't mean the rest of us don't.**

_Oh. I'm sorry. I just wanted to ask a question._

**...Fine. What do you want?**

_Do you like it in here?_

**Hmm, let me think about that. Do I like living in someone else's head with a glowy guy who won't stop pestering me? Yeah, I'm gonna go with no on that one.**

_Oh..._

**...**

_...Hey, Dark?_

**WHAT?!**

_Do you think Jak likes us?_

***Snort* You, maybe.**

_I think he likes you, too._

**And I think you should shut the hell up and let me sleep.**

_I mean, if he didn't like you, he wouldn't use you so much, you know? He'd just pretend you didn't exist and use me all the time._

**Precursors, I wish I could strangle you.**

_So, I mean, you don't have to worry about it so much, okay? Jak values you just as much as he values me, and I don't think he's going to get rid of either of us anytime soon._

**Who the hell said I was worried about that?**

_I can hear your thoughts. I know you think about it all the time._

**What! I do not...!**

_And I just want you to know that it's okay to talk about these things. I won't judge you._

**That's it! I'm moving to Torn's brain!**


	4. Guilt

It was all my fault.

I mean, sure, maybe I couldn't have fought off all those big goons by myself. Being two feet tall and furry didn't exactly make for an amazing fighter. But I could have done other things. I could have followed them, or looked harder, or done anything besides running away like a coward. Hell, I could have even looked for Keira, and we could have figured something out together. Instead I sat on my tail and did nothing for two whole years. I let him rot in that place while I drank away my guilt and pretended to be helpless.

So when I finally found him – the relief I felt at that moment was indescribable – it probably shouldn't have surprised me to see how much he had changed. I should have known he wouldn't come out of this in perfect condition. Maybe I had convinced myself that everything would be okay. Maybe I thought that everything could go back to normal once he was out; we could go back to Sandover and play on the beaches, cause mischief with the neighbors, swim in the bright blue oceans. He would still be that boy that would smile so brightly, the one that didn't have to say a word for me to understand exactly what he was thinking.

Instead, I found barely a shell of my old friend. But I pretended everything was okay, and refused to look away when he went Dark and became little more than an animal as he ripped his enemies to shreds. All because of me and my stupidity. It was my punishment for not saving him the one time he needed my help.


	5. Push

It was easy enough to see that the kid had potential. The way he handled that first mission was proof that he was an asset. That was before Torn even knew about the dark powers the Baron's "training" had bestowed on him. Jak was just naturally talented, just another useful soldier in the fight for the city's freedom.

It wasn't until after he'd seen the first transformation that he realized just how useful Jak was. He saw the raw power in the boy's form, the pure rage he bestowed on anyone who opposed him. He could cut a swathe through a dozen Krimzon Guards in seconds and come out the other side with barely a scratch. Not that Jak's darker side seemed to care about wounds. He fought right through them, using them as fuel for his anger.

After witnessing Jak in his most primal form, Torn knew what had to be done.

He continued to push the boy, a little more with each mission he sent them on. He hoped and prayed each time for Jak's darker side to awaken and assure victory. When he seemed to fight against it – a crazy move, in Torn's eyes – he decided to push a little harder.

It was somewhere around two months after Jak had joined the Underground when he asked the younger boy to meet him at the gun range, sans the furball. Jak didn't suspect anything was amiss when he arrived – how could he have seen it coming? – but when one of his arms was pulled painfully behind his back and Torn's arm was cutting off his airflow, the older man could feel the desperation in his gasps for air and free hand scrabbling weakly against his arm.

"Fight me off," Torn growled in his ear. But either Jak was bluffing him out or he really couldn't breathe, because he could feel the younger boy going limp in his arms. He pushed him forward until the cold concrete, delivering a sharp kick to his side as noisily gulped in air.

"Pathetic." Torn glared down at him as the boy rose shakily to his knees. This was off his game even by normal Jak standards. He aimed a sharp kick to his jaw as he tried to rise, sending him sprawling back to the floor. "Losers don't get to get up, Jak."

"I'm not going to fight you, Torn," Jak croaked, shakily rising to his hands and knees. He looked like he was going to throw up.

This wasn't working. Time for plan B. "No? That's disappointing. I wonder if that little rat you always carry around on your shoulder would put up a better fight?"

There, a flash of anger. "Don't you touch him." Torn said nothing, instead turning and walking casually toward the exit. In hindsight, a big mistake.

He found himself on the ground before the pain really hit him, lancing up his back like a thousand needles. He forced himself to remain silent, years of conditioning in the Krimzon Guard unallowing him to show his pain.

**:I said. Don't. Touch. Him.:**

He had never heard Jak's dark side speak before. The sound of it was like a thousand screaming deaths grating against his skull, shaking him from the inside out. He felt one of Jak's heavy boots press heavily onto his back, his ribs creaking from the strain. He gritted his teeth against the pain and braced himself for the inevitable killing blow.

But it never came. Slowly he opened his eyes and looked around. Jak, dark or otherwise, was nowhere in sight. He pushed himself to his knees and winced at the fresh blood that ran down his back and soaked into his clothes. The cuts weren't fatal; he would get Tess to clean them up before he headed back to headquarters.

He wished he could view tonight as a success, but in reality he knew it would only have been successful if Jak's dark side had killed him. The kid had too much control over it. He'd never give himself to it as completely as Torn would like, as much as they needed him to. The part of him that was the leader of the Underground was disappointed by this; the part of him that was a human being felt sickened.

He composed himself and limped the few blocks to the Hip Hog Haven. Maybe after she cleaned his wounds, Tess would give him something strong to drown his shame.


	6. Longing

It was on those nights when the silence pressed in around him louder than the most deafening noise, those nights when his eyes just refused to stay closed, that he found himself truly stopping to think about how much his life had changed. The day's endless battles left little time for such thoughts, but on those torturous nights where his brain wouldn't let him rest, he couldn't stop himself from going back to that little village he'd grown up in.

Sometimes, he swore he heard the crash of the waves on the beach, the call of gulls that rose from their nests before even the sun, the mooing of the yakows as they grazed by the cliffs. Sometimes he could convince himself that the whole ordeal was a dream, that he would wake up safe and happy in his uncle's house. Then Daxter would come running in, and they would ditch Samos' lessons in favor of goofing off.

That illusion never lasted long. All it took was a rough snort from an Underground member or a kick from Daxter's furry form beside him, and he was sent crashing back to reality.

He wondered if some part of him had known, all that time ago, what he would become now. But of course he never had. Growing up in his relatively safe little world – not including Lurkers, of course – he had been what some might call innocent. Looking back on it now, he thought that was the perfect way to describe it. He never thought people as cruel as Praxis and Erol existed. He had believed that all people were essentially good deep down, incapable of inflicting such horrible tortures on another human being. Gol and Maia notwithstanding…they were an exception that hadn't succeeded in shaking his beliefs one bit.

In some ways, he realized, the Baron had achieved his goal. Whatever had been left of Jak before those two years was long dead. He couldn't be that person anymore. He was fueled by hatred and revenge and trusted few, even those that had proven themselves allies to him. He knew that even if there were a way to return to Sandover, he wouldn't belong there anymore. So even as he remembered his home and imagined himself back in it, he begrudgingly knew he was exactly where he belonged.


	7. Comfort

The first thing Daxter knew, he was flying through the air, rudely interrupted from his dream of nuzzling into Tess' cleavage, and slamming down on the hard wood floor. He groaned, tried to stand, failed, flopped back down in a bony heap. His head was spinning so much he could barely see as he tried to get his bearings and figure out what the hell had just happened.

"Sorry, Dax..." Jak's rumbling voice met him as big warm hands plucked him from the ground. Oh, this was better. He focused on Jak and slowly his vision unblurred.

He blinked up at his friend's face as it slowly came into focus, the guilty expression and sweat beading on his forehead sparking a memory in Daxter's brain. "'Nother nightmare, buddy?"

Jak nodded slowly, setting Daxter gently back onto the bed and sitting down beside him. He released an explosive sigh, head lowered and hands clasped tightly behind his neck. Daxter knew that look all too well and laid a furry hand on his friend's shoulder.

"Hey, hey...don't sweat it too much, babe. Look, see? No broken bones. I ain't bleedin' from any important orifices. I'm as healthy as a yakow." Jak's expression didn't waver. Forwning, the little ottsel wormed his way past Jak's arm and onto his lap. "Now why don't ya tell Daxxie about this big, bad nightmare?" He sat down on his friend's knee, as if expecting a bedtime story, and waited patiently.

Jak's next sigh was shaky. Daxter counted the seconds that went by. He got to ninety-three before Jak finally spoke up:

"I don't really...think it was a dream."

Another long pause. Daxter could be patient when he wanted to, but this was pushing it. Still, best not to force Jak to do anything; he talked in his own time.

"Dark was talking to me," Jak finally said. "Whispering. Telling me to kill y..." The older boy's mouth snapped shut, but Daxter had already heard the "you" he was forming. He pretended not to notice. "He kept saying how easy it would be, just...just give in to him, stop fighting him. 

"I almost did it." Had Daxter not been sitting as close as he was, he never would have heard the whispered confession. He waited for Jak to continue, but it seemed like the older boy had said everything he was going to say. Now it was Daxter's turn to talk.

"So what, ya think that makes ya a bad person?" Jak said nothing, but he knew his friend well enough by now to know what his silences meant. "Ah, come on, buddy, if ya were a bad person, I wouldn't be here right now. Ya fought him. Ya won. Ain't that proof enough?"

"But it could happen again!" Jak snapped, finally looking at Daxter from under his shield of hair. "What if next time I don't fight him, and something bad happens?"

Now that Jak was facing him, he could see the hysteria in his friend's expression. As far as he was concerned, Jak would never let Dark take control. He had more discipline than that, more power. He might not think he was strong enough to fight against his darker side, but Daxter knew he was. After all, he'd had plenty of opportunity to do horrible things, and so far he'd resisted them all.

Of course, he knew Jak would never listen to him.

Daxter stood, bracing himself on Jak's knees, ignoring his friend's startled expression, and rapped his furry knuckles on the blonde head. "Hey! You in there! Darkie! I'm tryin' ta get my beauty sleep and you do not want me to come in there after ya if I don't!"

Jak let out a bark of laughter at his friend's serious expression. "You...what the heck are you doing, Dax?"

"That dark side a' yours needs a good talkin' to. And who else better than Orange Lightning to whip him into shape? Ya gotta learn to scold your dark side every now and then, babe, or he's just gonna walk all over ya." Daxter jumped off his friend's lap and onto the bed, stretching his small arms toward the ceiling and letting loose a giant yawn. He saw his friend trying to stifle laughter out of the corner of his eye.

"Now...I was havin' a real good dream involving a certain bartender, and I'm real eager to get back to that. So." Daxter jumped on his friend's chest as he laid down and curled up. "Night, Jakkie."

"Night. And...Dax?"

"Yeah, bud?"

"Thanks.


	8. Parent

My origins being what they are, of course I knew what Jak would become. I had seen it firsthand the day I left for the past with his younger self, in an effort to keep him safe from the evils of the Haven. He had been an innocent child then, but in the back of my mind I knew the monster he was going to become.

Despite my knowledge, I never once stopped trying to save Jak from that future. I become his mentor, and tried to instill values in him that I thought he would need, teach him lessons that might steer him away from what awaited him. I of all people should have known that fate is not so easily deterred. By the time I realized his crucial turning point, that single moment that would seal his fate, it was too late to stop it. I could only hang on for the ride.

I spent most of my time in the Baron's prison, unaware of what was going on in the outside world. Still, Jak would cross my mind now and then. I wondered if the Baron's experiments had affected him yet, if he'd joined the Underground, what new dangers he was throwing himself into. I didn't worry so much about his safety; fate had brought us this far, and fate was bound to follow its path just the same as it always had. Jak wouldn't die.

While witnessing my younger self leaving in that machine with the younger Jak by his side, I wondered if I should warn him about the turning point, perhaps steer him away from whatever fate had Jak in its grip. In the end, though, I held my tongue. It wasn't for me to decide. Jak's future might not have been set in stone, but the alternative to his absence in Haven would lead to events more catastrophic than I could justify. As much as it pained me, Jak's innocence had to be sacrificed to make way for all the good things he would do as a result.

Even now I look at him and remember the innocent little boy, and even the rebellious teenager, and I feel a pang of sadness. Jak was the closest thing I ever had to a son, and anyone who said I loved him any less would be sorely mistaken. I want to be able to choose him over the world, to do what's best for him even if it means thousands of deaths. I want to, but in my heart I know that Jak would never want that. The good in him is still there, and I think if he were given the choice he would follow the same path once again. As his parent, I want to have the power to change it. As a sage, I know that all is right with the world.


	9. Death

Jak stared down at the dead man lying limp under a pile of rocks. This was the man that had changed him forever, the driving force behind his rage and anger, the one he had fought countless times and vowed to kill with his own hands. It was a sort of irony that Jak had watched him die right in front of him at the hands of one he thought was a friend until moments ago.

There were a lot of things he could have felt at the moment of Praxis' death. Anger, that he had been cheated out of his personal revenge against this man who had all but tortured him for two years; happiness, that his reign was finally over, regardless of whose hands it had been at; he felt neither of these, however, but instead a cold apathy washed through him as he stared at the lifeless form.

Hating him had given him the will to keep moving, even when things looked their worst. In the end, though, the Baron wasn't an all-powerful killing machine like he had always believed in the back of his mind, but a human being. A human being who had gotten in over his head. A human being who was so desperate to fix the mess he'd made that he had messed with people's lives. A human being who, inevitably, succumbed to death like all other human beings.

Just before dying, he had called Jak his creation. It was unsettling to think just how true those words were. After all, were it not for him, he probably wouldn't be where he was. He wouldn't have joined up with the Underground, and most likely would have stayed far away from the fight he now found himself embroiled in. His hate for the Baron, for what he'd done to him, had driven him to this place. In that sense, he had become exactly what Praxis intended him to be. A war machine whose only true use was to kill.

Jak's gaze lingered on the corpse a few more seconds before he turned to where Kor had disappeared. Baron Praxis wasn't his enemy anymore. He had never been in the habit of making enemies with the dead.


	10. Transformation

The first time she had seen it, she couldn't say it meant that much to her.

Jak was still a stranger then, just some random Underground member that Torn had sent to babysit her, though she was perfectly capable of handling things herself. Even when the Metalheads began attacking, all she could think was that she'd have to protect this kid from getting himself killed. She never dreamed just how well he could handle himself.

She remembered a faint surprise when he transformed, but he wasn't the first person with transformation abilities she had ever met. However, she was all but shocked when he took out the whole slew of Metalheads by himself. And, she would admit, a little bit impressed.

It wasn't until later that she found out just where his transforming abilities had come from, and the story behind it. Part of her wanted to ask her father if it was true, but she already knew the answer to that. He'd done far worse in his lifetime.

After that, she started watching him more. She began to realize he rarely smiled; that he often wandered off by himself when no-one was looking; that he stared off into space a lot, yet was able to focus with razor sharpness at the slightest sign of danger.

This Jak was all she knew, but on the rare occasion when she spoke to Daxter about him, he told her about a much different person. He told her about the mute kid who was always willing to lend a hand to anyone in need with the baby face and the most brilliant smile. He told her about the kid who always managed to convince him to play hooky from his studies without even saying a word, and all the silly adventures they'd had up until Daxter's transformation into an ottsel. She couldn't help but notice the bitterness in Daxter's voice when he told her these things. Not for the first time, she felt a twinge of hate for her own father.

Nevertheless, she reluctantly admitted it was probably a good thing he had these powers. He wouldn't stand much of a chance against the Baron if he didn't, or the Metal Heads. She wondered if the loss of so much of himself was worth the ability to fight, but in the end decided that question to be unanswerable.


	11. Sleep, or Lack Thereof

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight mature content in this chapter.

Since Daxter's re-entrance into the world of the humanoids, a lot of things had changed. His body had apparently caught up with him, so that he wasn't quite so scrawny anymore. The buck teeth were still there, but hey, he could live with them. And sure, he was still kinda short, but he was still taller than Keira and he counted that as a victory. On the plus side, he was still technically a Precursor, so he got all the cool powers that went along with the position as well as the ability to wear pants and reach high shelves.

In the beginning, when it had still been a relatively new experience, he spent most of his time binge drinking and eating as much as his stomach could handle. His excuse was that he was testing out his limits, but in all honesty it just felt awesome to be able to eat and drink so much more than his two-foot form. And, although he would never admit it out loud, there was that small chance that he would change back again, and he didn't want to go back without living it up in his humanoid body as much as possible.

He'd forgotten how complicated things could be as a humanoid, though. As an ottsel, he was excused for a lot of things, because people viewed him as an animal. Now, he faced down the brunt of Torn's wrath (though to be perfectly honest, the man had never liked him much to begin with) and, unfortunately, he couldn't flirt with every pair of breasts that walked his way on the very real chance they might have large boyfriends with meaty fists just waiting to punch the buck right out of his teeth. Of course, he still had Tess, but even she found him less endearing as a humanoid. It wasn't that she outright rejected him, but she still treated him differently than she had when he was an ottsel. He understood—nobody could say he was the most attractive person in Haven—but it still stung a bit.

It was about two weeks into his transformation, when he and Tess were all alone in the bar, when she leaned down and whispered, as if there was anyone within earshot anyway, "So, have you and Jak gotten together yet?" He remembered spitting out whatever he was drinking at the time and choking for a solid ten minutes before he finally managed to ask her what she was talking about.

"Don't think I don't see the way you guys look at each other," she said, grabbing a rag and wiping the wet spot off her blouse. She smiled in that mysterious way of hers that made him seriously believe that airheaded personality of hers was all show, like she knew exactly what was going on even when the parties involved didn't.

In all honesty, Daxter had never thought about it before. Then again, spending his life as a kid and an animal didn't exactly leave much room for thinking about stuff like that. Sure, he flirted with Tess all the time and he loved a nice big pair of knockers as much as the next guy, but…well, he'd said it before, things were just a lot different when you were an animal.

After that, Tess made it her mission to hook the two of them up. She claimed it was because she wanted them to be happy, but Daxter suspected that she wanted him to stop flirting with her.

It wasn't that he didn't like Jak – what wasn't to like? – but it all seemed like a waste of time to Daxter. Jak was his best friend, had been practically their whole lives, and even if he did like the more masculine gender, there were tons of better choices than Daxter. Hell, he may not have been skinny anymore, but that didn't exactly mean he was packing on muscle.

Still, he went along with it. More for curiosity's sake than anything and, well, he wasn't an ottsel anymore, might as well start taking this whole humanoid life thing seriously. He never really expected it to go anywhere, and when it did, he reacted the only way he knew how: excessive flirting, dirty jokes, and more than a friendly amount of groping.

Which basically led him here.

He'd slept in the same bed as Jak before, sure, but it was different than sleeping in the same bed as kids and way different than when he had been an ottsel. For one, Jak was a massive cuddlebunny when it came to someone his own size, practically squeezing the life out of him as he snored quietly just inches from his ear. For another, Daxter found that he didn't mind as much as he might have as an ottsel. This was much, much different than sleeping together out of necessity and, well…he'd probably complain about it later, but he kind of liked it.

He was just starting to fall asleep after who knew how many hours when he felt something sharp poke into his stomach. At first he thought Jak had brought a knife to bed and planned to elbow him in the side and tell him to not, under and circumstances, cuddle him with a knife, but when he looked down, he found himself freezing completely, even his breath catching in his throat.

His hand was a sickly grey. And that sharp thing poking him in the stomach? Nasty black claws easily three inches long.

Of course, he knew about Jak's little transformation problem (kinda hard to forget his firsthand experience with old Darkie) but he'd never seen the other boy transform in his sleep. That was another thing to add to his "things I didn't know about Jak" list that was growing disturbingly longer by the day.

Slowly, so as not to wake the sleeping beast, he turned over until he was facing Jak. He was completely transformed alright; sharp fangs, white hair, black horns and all. If he'd been awake, or if Daxter had been bold enough to force his eyelids apart, he'd probably see those soulless black pits he called eyes staring back at him.

Jak's brows were furrowed tightly, and a faint growling escaped his lips. Daxter gasped as he felt the arms tighten around him, claws digging into the skin of his lower back. This certainly wasn't going to work for very long. Either he'd have to wake the other boy up and risk getting torn to shreds, or he'd have to figure out a way to change him back in his sleep.

He started off slow, running his hands through the fine white hair and placing a few light kisses on his brow, his cheeks, anywhere but the mouth. He didn't want to get into any close personal contact with those pearly whites. Jak's frown lessened, but only just. Okay, then, drastic measures.

There wasn't much space between them due to the iron grip Jak had on him, but he somehow managed to slide his hand down and underneath the light cotton underwear that Jak wore to bed. Daxter heard a small noise from the boy above him and stilled for a moment, stealing a quick glance to make sure he wasn't about to die a horrible bloody death, and then returned to his task.

Now, this was different, he decided as he felt Jak slowly relax into his touch. Sure, they'd had sex before, and handjobs were certainly not new, but they'd never quite been like this before. The threat of death had never exactly lingered over him during those times. It was more than a little terrifying.

And okay, kind of hot…but mostly terrifying.

When the white finally began to leach out of his hair and the claws finally decided to stop making notes of his internal organs, Daxter expected Jak to go back to his normal humanoid self. What he didn't expect was the nearly blinding glow and that warm feeling of peace that he always felt around Jak's Light side. Huh. That was new too.

Ah, whatever. Daxter rolled over unceremoniously and relaxed into the human night light behind him. He'd tell Jak about this in the morning.


End file.
